The body of 43-year-old Uwe Sattler was found in the River Elbe in July by a fisherman. He was wearing a rucksack full of rocks and had been shot in the head and put into a sack fastened with cable ties before he hit the water.

"We are 99.999 percent certain it was suicide," a Hamburg police spokeswoman told The Local.

"There is no other explanation; no other motive and no other evidence."

The only thing I see that doesn't add up here is that the gun was never found. Tie yourself up in a sack with a gun, stand on the edge of a bridge with your back facing out, and shoot yourself in the head: that'll produce almost this exact scenario, and it's not too difficult to accomplish. But there's a catch: when they find the sack with you in it, they'll find the gun in the sack.

That's what ultimately leads me to think that this cannot be entirely the guy's own doing. I can see one other scenario where it's suicide: the guy shoots himself in the head, then someone else comes across the body, panics, puts it in a sack, and throws it in the river. But even in this case, an investigation is still needed: who found the body?

Pardon Me Sultan:"It's 99.999 percent certain that the victim carefully reached out of the tied bag full of rocks hovering over the water and shot himself in the head so the gun fell beside the bag..."

"...but instead of staying behind, the gun vanished"

Well, to me the obvious murder suspect would be whoever it was who tried to pass this off as suicide.

SDRR:The body of 43-year-old Uwe Sattler was found in the River Elbe in July by a fisherman. He was wearing a rucksack full of rocks and had been shot in the head and put into a sack fastened with cable ties before he hit the water.

"We are 99.999 percent certain it was suicide," a Hamburg police spokeswoman told The Local.

"There is no other explanation; no other motive and no other evidence."

Millennium:The only thing I see that doesn't add up here is that the gun was never found. Tie yourself up in a sack with a gun, stand on the edge of a bridge with your back facing out, and shoot yourself in the head: that'll produce almost this exact scenario, and it's not too difficult to accomplish. But there's a catch: when they find the sack with you in it, they'll find the gun in the sack.

That's what ultimately leads me to think that this cannot be entirely the guy's own doing. I can see one other scenario where it's suicide: the guy shoots himself in the head, then someone else comes across the body, panics, puts it in a sack, and throws it in the river. But even in this case, an investigation is still needed: who found the body?

That was covered in the story. They claim he stuck his arm through the bag opening as it was big enough. Fire the gun and it falls to the water.

That of course still leaves the catch of his arm not being outside the bag when found.

Today, I'm going to work on drawing up a suicide plan so complex and far-reaching that entire governments will be wrongly implicated. How did my head end up in the diplomatic pouch at the U.S. Interests section of the Swiss embassy in Havana? Why was the bullet in my torso an exact ballistic match for the gun that killed President Garfield? Just who was it that built the plywood forms and poured the concrete blocks that contained each of my hands, and then arranged for them to be formally entered into evidence in the ongoing trial of a high-profile mafia don? And why do the mysterious radioactive isotopes that emanate faintly from my various body parts match no known spectrographic profile?

I mean, I hope I don't have to use it, but I'd want to have the satisfaction of knowing it was going to fark with everybody's head.

Chief Tinkler: What can assume from the fact that he was stabbed, strangled, shot, suffocated, and bludgeoned?Jodie: That he didn't commit suicide.Chief Tinkler: We can assume that Peter Campbell either had many killers or he had one killer who really hated his guts.

So y'know how locations advertise to bring in new business...like tourism or big/rich companies...

So this seems like the Hamburg Police Dept's ad to bring in organized crime and assassination business - "Come to Hamburg...where we value you're bribery. Let us show you some of our cover-up option packages..."

Millennium:The only thing I see that doesn't add up here is that the gun was never found. Tie yourself up in a sack with a gun, stand on the edge of a bridge with your back facing out, and shoot yourself in the head: that'll produce almost this exact scenario, and it's not too difficult to accomplish. But there's a catch: when they find the sack with you in it, they'll find the gun in the sack.

That's what ultimately leads me to think that this cannot be entirely the guy's own doing. I can see one other scenario where it's suicide: the guy shoots himself in the head, then someone else comes across the body, panics, puts it in a sack, and throws it in the river. But even in this case, an investigation is still needed: who found the body?

But the cops said there was just enough space for him to have reached out to shoot himself. The only issue is where's the gun--but that could be someone found it, Hey, free gun.

Alternately, perhaps he arranged something that tossed the gun into the water afterwards--say, tie the gun to something over the water, use something flammable. Connect a fuse to that, light fuse. After the shot the gun will be hanging, when the fuse burns down the rope fails and drops the gun into the water. The remaining rope burns up, all that's left on land is a burn mark wherever the rope was tied.

He might not even have had his arm outside. I'm thinking of a case from a fictional TV show but it certainly could be done--the guy fired the gun by means of a string. He had previously lit the string so the cops found the gun but the shot was from too far away to be self-inflicted.

spawn73:It doesn't sound like they saved any time by ruling it a suicide. They still searched for the gun and tried to track down anyone who knew him.

Also, he had left what amounted to a suicide note in his apartment (instructions to what should be done with his belongings).

Yeah. Every so often we see these elaborate pretend-suicide-is-a-murder cases. Based on the article I agree with the cops on this.

Mock26:Reminds me of some comedian years ago who was reading newspaper clippings, and one was a suicide where a guy shot himself 7 times with a single shot bolt action rifle!

Long ago I ran into a paramedic who had rolled on such a case. 7 shots to the head. Not only was the guy not dead but he was still in good enough shape that he was the one who called for help because it hurt too much. .22 rifle + alcohol = zero penetrations of the skull.